Who are
the leaders of the Movimiento Cubano de Jóvenes por la Democracia and the Consejo
Unitario de Trabajadores Cubanos?

Response:

The
president of the Movimiento Cubano de Jóvenes por la Democracia (hereafter, the
Movimiento) is Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison on
April 10, 1997 for "disrespect" and "resistance," and is currently
imprisoned in the Combinado de Guantánamo prison in Guantánamo province. Radamés
García de la Vega, a Movimiento vice president was sentenced on July 23, 1997 to 18
months in prison for "disrespect" and is currently imprisoned in Santiago de
Cuba (AI August 1997, 11-12).

In 1998
the principal spokesperson for the Movimiento was Rafael Fonseca Ochoa, who is currently a
vice president of the group and also a member of the Consejo Unitario de Trabajadores
Cubanos (CUTC) (BPIC 19 June 1998). During 1998, he has often denounced to independent
Cuban journalists poor treatment of prisoners and other human rights violations (BPIC 23
February 1998). The Buró de Prensa Independiente de Cuba (BPIC) reported that he was
detained by state security on May 26, 1998, threatened with imprisonment on a charge of
"disobedience," and released (BPIC 11 June 1998). In mid-June, Fonseca denounced
that Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina and other political prisoners in Combinado de Guantánamo
prison had become ill because the prisons drinking water had become contaminated
(BPIC 19 June 1998).

The home
town of Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina is Baracoa, Guantánamo province, and his fathers
name is Ramón Rodríguez Azahares. The father told independent journalists in mid-June
1998 that in May his son and others had been confined to maximum security punishment cells
in the Combinado de Guantánamo prison because they had carried out an homage to Pedro
Luis Boitel, a political prisoner who died in prison in 1972 (El Nuevo Herald 23
June 1998). Boitel is the namesake of at least two political prisoner groups in Cuba . In
the Combinado de Guantánamo prison the group is called the Presidio Político Cubano
Pedro Luis Boitel and Rodríguez Lobaina participates in it (El Nuevo Herald 23
June 1998).

In early
March 1998 the Movimiento and 12 other dissident groups in the eastern provinces formed an
umbrella group, the Plataforma Democrática Oriental. This group issued the Declaración
de Oriente, which said that, inspired by the Pope, they had come together around the idea
of liberty, democracy and justice based on "Social Christian Doctrine" (De Motas
10 March 1998).

As noted
above, Rafael Fonseca Ochoa is also a member of the CUTC. The CUTC was founded in Havana
in 1995 and since then has established branches in some other provinces, including
Guantánamo (BPIC 8 March 1998). The president of the CUTC is Pedro Pablo Alvarez Ramos.
On June 9, 1998, the CUTC issued a written statement in Havana protesting the Cuban
governments refusal to let Alvarez Ramos make a trip to Venezuela (NPC 18 June
1998). Two days earlier, on June 7, the CUTC and eight other organizations issued a
document in Havana which proposed to the Cuban government the idea of creating a Cámara
Conjunta de Representantes, to be made up of government representatives and peaceful
opposition groups both on the island and in exile, for the purpose of establishing a
dialogue (InfoBuró 15 June 1998).

This
Response was prepared after searching publicly accessible information currently available
to the RIC within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be,
conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.